I have a lot of catching up to do with comics. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with all the characters I don't know that I feel like sticking out my bottom lip and making up my own histories for them. I think this is a double reference from something cool I saw on the Johnny Crossbones blog. I'm sure the big boys could tell me it's all wrong but I don't care and I want my tea.

I just came back from a wild Friday night party, for a one-year-old whose 3-year-old sister couldn't quite get her head around the idea that it wasn't her party and they weren't her gifts. I didn't get around to buying a proper gift for the baby, so I gave the 3-year-old my copy of Fred by Posy Simmonds. And then I was a little embarrassed when I read it out loud to her and remembered it was about a cat funeral. Nothing beats talking about dead pets at a party.

I read a Miffy story to 6 and a 4 year old girls last week and unthinkingly declared that the picture of a cow in the book looked liked Hitler. The little girls' mum quickly said "that's a conversation for another day..." Oops! (Quite right too)

Mine wasn't too bad, except I realised half-way through the book that the girl hadn't twigged when she said, 'But where is Fred?' And I had to say, 'Fred is dead.' Just during a lull in the adult conversation.